All of my dreams have already come true. I’ve had more than one record contract, I’ve run my own record label, been on television, been on the radio, performed in front of millions of people, found my soul mate, graduated from college, started a successful band, learned the art of recording and audio production, written a book, started my own business, travelled all over the world, produced a radio program, had a child, been married, recovered from drug addiction and alcoholism, cleared away the wreckage of my past, learned more than one foreign language well enough to limp through distant lands on my own, taught myself html, css, php and some java, made more than $100,000 USD in one year, owned a brand new car, set myself into the service of others, made myself useful, devoted myself to a spiritual practice, learned to become a true friend, learned to love myself, and finally accepted my hair the color and texture it is without adding anything to cover it up. I continue to try to pass on what’s been so freely given to me with all of my heart.

I am one powerful human being. Creative, capable, compassionate, intelligent, wise, patient, kind, ferocious, beautiful, skilled, and devoted. I have my shortcomings too. I am useless with time and dates, I forget myself (eating, appointments, flights, meetings, sleeping) all the time, I am useless with money, it simply isn’t important to me, and provided I have enough to meet my humble needs I don’t even think about it (which poses all sorts of problems,) but I am a man, and intuitively I suffer from the useless throwback perspective that when we run out of berries I’ll just go out and get some more.

With a sense of humor about my shortcomings (even in the worst of times) and a humble perspective about the gifts I’ve been given, you might think it was time to retire. Or maybe time to kick up my feet and crank out the work and cash in on my skill set. You’d think… would you really think that? I hope not, cause it isn’t like that for me. I find that why is painfully important to me. And I don’t take pat answers to those questions lightly. So because I like it is out of the question. No, I mean the cosmic why and all of her companions. Yes… sigh… I feel the deepest urge within my soul, always, to find meaning and purpose and art in everything.

Why not just lighten up? I mean, what’s the big deal? Why be so heavy all the fucking time right? Why can’t you just have fun, make some money, and let the good times roll? That’s a great question which I note here I am asking myself and I’m not just stalling for time either. If everything’s under my belt, why am I still seeking? What is the unrest in my soul?

What dreams are these?

I feel music inside of me which has not yet been produced. I feel my sound and approach to composition being applied to the wonderful music of artists who need guidance and vision to make more progress. I see design, posters, photographs, films, huge canvases photo screened with my collage work, I hear the sound of my voice cheering in a night club full of wonderful, vulnerable souls who were early to give themselves to these new sounds, these new images, these new, authentic twenty first century ideas. Everyone knew that the double-oughts were going to be a rehash of the last fifty years and maybe then we could either get back to work, or at least remove all our body hair and, in photosynthetic organic body suits which change color based on our moods, fully rebel against society by listening to chopin, and sitting very still with thick books in our laps.

It all began with my divorce. I had always wanted to be married, even though I protested, but I never wanted to be divorced. My parents got divorced, that was for them not for me. I resisted, and struggled the whole way, closing up the doors and windows of myself screaming “This is not the way it’s supposed to happen!” the entire time. The world was moving on without me, and I suddenly, and inexplicably found myself emotionally retarded, almost entirely mute, with my feet sinking into the silt of the river my life had become, and the worst part… I’ll tell you the worst part… I was facing the wrong direction, looking backward at the beautiful trees behind me, feeling the water splashing against my chest, filling my mouth and disguising my tears. Divorce was the first dream I hadn’t counted on.

Since then many things have happened. I have become somehow more flexible, more durable, more present, and vastly more patient. I can accept that the world doesn’t work the way I wanted it to, the way I thought I could forge into being with my bare hands and a knack for isolation. I look into the eyes of dear and beloved friends I never thought I’d see again and smile, with love, and a liberated heart and welcome them into an entirely new room in my house.

Eight days ago I began to shave. Without thinking about it, I left a mustache behind. At first I was shy about it, especially because it was so trendy last year to have a mullet, a member’s only jacket, and a mustache in New York City, and because I’m not a hat guy, or a mustache man either. In this era of life imitating pornography, beautiful people removing all their body hair to look prepubescent, rejecting themselves, covering themselves with artificiality, reverting to objects, work horses, pack mules seeking shelter at a price either inhumanly high, or hardly worth anything at all, I felt that to make use of what seems to come naturally to the hair follicles on my face might be a dream I didn’t know I had.

Sunshine, are you out of your mind?

Maybe I am. Perhaps I’ve simply abandoned all of my sense of style and good taste, but I find myself catching a glimpse of the moustache in a window as I pass and I think “Who is that?” or I will actually stop and make a sleazy face, or even a French one. It feels good. It is a new dream, a humble goal, one I may abandon later tonight. But for the time being… My moustache is a metaphor for all that is beautiful in the world, for the filth of the night clubs, the depth of my affection, the hunger I feel to completely offset all that I have done before. Not since I cut my long hair off in 1996 and passed from pesky notoriety into blissful social obscurity have I felt like such a renegade.

Let’s see how long I remain amused by the bristling little beginnings of facial hair, shall we?